September 8, 2009

Soon I’ll be soliciting feedback from a few 9/11 “debunkers,” as well as people in the 9/11 Truth movement, regarding my draft pamphlet.

But first, here’s a little about me and my more general point of view, and the evolution of my views on 9/11. I’ll also say a little about my views on “conspiracy theories” and what I call grand conspiracy ideology.

April 23, 2008

I’m now trying to learn about the Israel/Palestine conflict. I don’t yet have a definite opinion about it, except that I mistrust the propaganda of both sides, and I’m wary of both sides’ tendency to dismiss the concerns of the other side.

Since you’ve studied this subject more than I have, I figure you might be a good person to give me a reality check on some Zionist talking points. (I would also appreciate comments from anyone else knowledgeable who happens to be reading this.)(more…)

Recently, someone urged a bunch of us to Google “United States corporation.” Supposedly, we would thereby learn about some horrible legislation, passed by Congress back in 1871, which somehow managed to nullify the U.S. Constitution by changing “Constitution for the United States” to “Constitution of the United States.”

Offhand, it doesn’t seem likely to me that a law passed by Congress could change the wording of the Constitution itself. That would require a Constitutional amendment. When I asked for more details about the alleged law, the person who had brought it up said he hadn’t yet researched it in detail himself, but he urged us all to Google it ourselves anyway. He seemed to think it was terribly important that we all learn about this horrible betrayal of the American Republic.

Okay, here goes. I Googled it. To make my search more specific, I Googled “United States corporation 1871.”

The “Act of 1871” is the District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871.(more…)

Two days ago, I noticed that someone had found my blog via the Eustace Mullins tag here on WordPress. The only other post listed there, besides one of my own, was a post on a blog called tobefree: jeff’s freedom pages, owned by one Jeff Fenske. The post in question consists of just a quote from Mullins’s book Secrets of the Federal Reserve.

Jeff Fenske’s About page starts off with a picture of a license plate which says “NOHATE.” That being the case, I hope he’ll be willing to listen to reason regarding Eustace Mullins.(more…)

On the Truth Action message board, there are now the beginnings of some discussion about the promulgation of right-wing-style anti-“banking system” hysteria and anti-Illuminism within the 9/11 Truth movement.(more…)

Many people in the 9/11 Truth movement are appalled by the blatant Jew-hating of once-respected 9/11 Truth activists such as Eric Hufschmid and Christopher Bollyn. But how should we counter such bigotry?

Some 9/11 Truth activists think the thing to do is simply to refuse to associate with the Jew-haters. But that, in my opinion, is a band-aid solution. We need to address the deeper problem of how some bigoted ideologies, primarily though not exclusively anti-Jewish, are being promulgated these days within various political movements including the 9/11 Truth movement.

Jew-hating ideologies are most commonly promulgated in disguised form. The two favorite disguises seem to be:(more…)

The banking system is certainly not above criticism. However, as I pointed out in a comment after my post on Chip Berlet and “conspiracism”, there are at least three reasons to be wary of some of the allegations about the Federal Reserve System that have been circulated widely in the 9/11 Truth movement:

Many of the more inflammatory allegations originated in anti-Jewish propaganda. Although the people who repeat these allegations are not necessarily Jew-haters themselves, and although the anti-Jewish origin of a claim does not, in itself, prove the claim to be false, it is a good reason to be suspicious. At the very least, it’s a good reason to double-check the accuracy of the claim rather than repeat it uncritically. An example is the claim that the Federal Reserve System makes huge profits that go into the pockets of the owners of member banks, a claim I questioned in my post about Some of the rhetoric against the Federal Reserve System. I subsequently learned that one of the main sources for the more extreme claims about the Federal Reserve System is Eustace Mullins, a notorious Jew-hater.

While looking for info I could use in a pamphlet against anti-Illuminism, I came across Pat Robertson, Illuminism, and the New World Order by S.R. Shearer, a conservative Christian who opposes anti-Illluminism and some other fascist-like trends within the religious right wing. Of particular interest to me was footnote 11 of section II:

The linkage here that Robertson is attempting to make between the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers is critical in the modern day version of the Illuminati Myth; the conjunction is necessary in order to tie the Old World to the New World in the grand scheme of things – and how better to do it than by uniting what most people consider to be the wealthiest family of the Old World to the richest family in the New. All variations of the myth make this linkage; some versions even attempt to paint the Rockefellers as Jews – they were in fact Baptists. The fall back position apparently has been to tie the Rockefellers to Jacob Schiff (a Jew), and then join the Rockefellers to the Rothschilds using Schiff as the linkage – which is precisely what Robertson does here – using Warburg and the Aldrichs as additional ties. All this is straight out of the “Jewish-World Conspiracy.”

In both the antiwar movement and the 9/11 Truth movement here in New York City, I’ve often run into people talking about “the Illuminati.” In the antiwar movement, I haven’t yet run into this in any official statements by any leaders or groups, but I’ve run into it a lot in informal conversation at anti-war rallies and at informal gatherings in restaurants after meetings. In the 9/11 Truth movement, on the other hand, a few of the major leaders and groups officially promulgate an ideology which has no official name, but which I will refer to as anti-Illuminism.

Anti-Illuminism is sometimes referred to, by its opponents, as “Illuminati conspiracy theory,” a term I don’t like because of the frequent propagandistic use of the term “conspiracy theory” to lump together truly wacky conspiratorial claims, such as Henry Ford’s The International Jew and David Icke’s claims about the Queen of England being an alien lizard, together with more reasonable theories about possible government wrongdoing, thereby discrediting the more realistic theories.

So, I’ve chosen instead to resurrect the late-1700’s word “anti-Illuminism.” (For some history of that word, see the Amazon customer review of The Politics of Unreason: Right Wing Extremism in America, 1790 1977 by Seymour Martin Lipset; Conspiracy Nation‘s review of Architects of Fear by eorge Johnson, reviewed by Brian Francis Redman; this page of Constructing Postmodernism by Brian McHale; and The Anti-democratic Movement by Paul de Armond.)

Based on what I’ve looked at so far, I’ve not yet found any good evidence that the Illuminati still exist, let alone that they secretly control the world. Most of the “evidence” I’ve seen so far has revolved mainly around various organizations’ use of particular symbols, as if the different groups couldn’t just be stealing ideas from each other, or perhaps using the same symbols to mean different things.

I also have big problems with many of the political beliefs and aims that typically accompany – and follow naturally from – belief in “the Illuminati.”(more…)

In the right wing anti-establishment alternative media, there’s a lot of focus on the Federal Reserve System as the alleged root of many of this country’s ills.

I’m inclined to agree that the Federal Reserve System puts too much power in the hands of bankers and that that’s probably a bad idea. However, some of the anti-Fed rhetoric I’ve been reading lately strikes me as greatly exaggerated.

It is alleged by some people that the Federal Reserve System is, in reality, nothing but a private banking cartel, “as federal as Federal Express.” (See, for example, JFK vs. The Federal Reserve by Anthony Wayne and Proof of the Banking Conspiracy: A Message from the Past by Randy Lavello.) Some have alleged, further, that the Fed’s sole real purpose is to make money for the banks by putting the government and all the rest of us deeper and deeper in debt. And it is alleged that at least some of the big bankers, in order to maintain their deadly grip via the Fed, are the main conspirators behind various crimes such as the JFK assassination, 9/11, etc.(more…)